


untitled.1917

by joansgoose



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24869251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joansgoose/pseuds/joansgoose
Summary: fuck you sam mendes I don't like the way 1917 ended. tom blake IS alive you stupid slut. au where schofield doesn't have a wife and kids bc he's not even the wife and kids sort. sorry I don't make the rules
Relationships: Tom Blake & William Schofield
Kudos: 10





	untitled.1917

**Author's Note:**

> this is short!!! just a little slide-in intro for the story. :)

There was a deep sense of alienation that Schofield felt on the top of the hill, away from the camp, away from voices that he could still hear, carried by the wind over the grass and through the softly swaying trees. There was no home. There was a house, a house buried deep in his mind that held the bare footsteps of childhood and some smells that he could place, but beyond those things, there was nothing tethering him to the ground. He was floating through fields and along trenches that no longer felt real. There were things around him that he felt he could not touch, his body numb. The sky was frighteningly blue and things were too much, all too nauseating, and he pressed his head back against the trunk of the tree and inhaled the cool spring air. He slipped his trembling hand into his pocket and pressed his thumb against the cold metal band that he still was not sure of, if it was real or just a fragment of memory, something imagined to retain some tactile memory of a friend. It was one of Blake's rings, simple, thin, and silver, which he had kept for himself with a heavy cloak of guilt. He considered going back and returning it to his blood brother, the man who probably deserved it more than he did, but he kept it clenched in his hand, warming it with his own hot palm.

Would Blake have liked this weather? It was temperate and sunny and breezy, with soft tufts of clouds floating lazily by, streaking the sickeningly turquoise sky with white. Schofield could see him now, smiling up at him over the pinkish petals of a cherry tree. He let go of the ring and the image dissolved from his mind.

His mother had reassured him once when he was very young that friends come and go, that he would love some that would leave and let go of some himself, that not everyone was permanent. But Blake felt permanent, he felt like home, and that home was stripped from him. 

Down the hill and past the camp a blurry figure weakly ascended, and he watched it like an ant climbing over a leaf. It stumbled and had weak footing and he followed it with his gaze, feeling his expression draw lower. The soldier was now moving faster, and upon reaching the tents, was swarmed. There was a muffled commotion surrounding it. Maybe it was a favorite, stumbling back from the hell beyond the barbed wire. 

What had the point even been? It felt so selfish to ask, but he still neglected to save all of the men, leaving so many left to die at the hands of other men who would soon die themselves. He was too late, too small, too quiet, too clumsy. Blake didn't even get to see his brother; it was Schofield who was left to deliver the letter. He wished he had been stabbed instead.

As the medics began to bustle in the dip of the land below, dancing and floating from station to station like ants in a green sugar bowl, Schofield stood, stuffing his hand back in his pocket to feel the ring again. It was now warm, as warm as his body could keep it through his uniform. He slowly descended the hill, the ground slightly softer towards the bottom, turning to a cushion beneath his boots. It was loud; medics were calling out for thread and medicines and other instruments, and Schofield passed through the moving bodies as he had through the trenches. Blake's brother passed by looking distraught, and as his eyes followed him, he met the eyes of the incoming soldier, staring weakly up at the influx of men. Nausea crept from his stomach to his throat as he took in the image of the face that could not have been real, ghostly pale and hauntingly familiar. 

His feet began to carry him in the soldier’s direction. Colors were bright and vivid and intoxicating, and every step forward was not of his own consciousness. Blood-stained hands surrounded the frail white body and the once green uniform was now brown and black with dirt and more dried blood. He could feel the blood drain from his own face, sinking to his feet and maybe even further, as if he was tethered back down to the earth once more. There was gasping and sputtering and coughing, blood staining the soft corners of the soldier’s mouth, and Schofield could not tear his eyes away.

Naturally, the older Blake brother was right by his younger brother’s side, comforting him, his own warm, pink hand clasping Tom’s grey palm. Schofield, pale and nauseated, stayed further back as the medics swarmed to him like moths to flame. 

“Wonder what that’s all about,” groaned a voice next to him, and he turned to see a red-faced man with a pale neck and a gnarled missing foot. 

Schofield could not answer. He instead turned away from the bleeding man and the half-dead body that he could still see smiling and flushed with life and laughter and started away, over the hill and away from sight. Once he was away from the dying men and the sight he still could not decipher, he was sick, bent over with his eyes tightly shut. It felt like his whole body was pouring out. He had lost and now it was back, back but not quite, and still as deadly-looking as it had been hardly more than a day before. With his fists balled in the greenish-gold grass and his face numb and cold, he recalled how the head had felt heavy and cool in his hands, keeping it raised from the ground below. He saw how the figure had sprawled in the grass as he laid it to rest, and the thought of it getting back up once again made him sick again. 

—

Schofield did not eat that night. He was made a place for the evening and was set to return home soon, but the news was not as relieving as hoped. Through the night he lay awake on his cot, restless, tired, and still sick. Occasionally he would touch his face or his arm to see to it that he was not dreaming, first with his fingertips and then harshly with his fingernails. 

In the early minutes of morning he was greeted by the older Blake brother, standing awkwardly in the makeshift doorway with his dirty, chapped hands resting against the wooden frame. They looked almost the same in the dim light and Schofield nearly mistook him for Tom, his heart briefly in his throat before the silhouette spoke. 

“Do you want to see him?” Joseph Blake asked. 

“Is he alive?” whispered Schofield, to which Blake nodded. 

Schofield stood slowly and stepped forward slightly, and Blake moved away from the doorframe for him to pass. They made their way over the blue fields quietly, their footsteps light but quickening as they approached the tents. 

Tom’s face was as blue as the moon above, still pale and silvery. 

“Somehow,” the older Blake began, “he managed to make his way back.” 

Schofield pictured it: Tom waking up disoriented, sitting up to the shooting pain, moving his hand to the wound to pick up half-dried blood on his fingertips. 

“He seemed very adamant,” he continued. “We watched him go up the hill. We didn’t know who he was, and he was so ghastly I could hardly recognize him.”

After a few minutes of silence, Schofield finally spoke. 

“Has he woken up?”

“Oh, not yet. He hardly made it to the camp, he was practically crawling; but he should.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Schofield slowly. 

Blake shook his head, but didn't respond. Schofield didn't feel that he was owed a response. 

—

Seven days later, the sky was a soft pink, a creeping sunrise as gentle and smooth as cherry blossom petals. Schofield had finally slept, dreamlessly and soundly, which surprised him the next morning. Perhaps the same thought in his head had been run so many times it wore out before it could play again more vividly in his dreams. Nonetheless, he kept close to it, his open palms clenching as the slightest feeling of air against them reminded him of Blake's head in his hands. 

He was now clean, stitched, and in washed clothes, but still felt the heaviness of recent events hanging off of him like a dirty film. As per routine, he made his way up to the tents, choking down the smell of bodies with gangrene and mangled limbs, and stopped at the last cot, where Blake had lay before, the impression of his body still there. His absence surprised Schofield, but he turned back, looking around for him. A pool of worry began to fill in his stomach. Maybe the knife was really killing him after all. 

"Scho," cooed a voice behind him, hoarse but still warmly familiar.

Schofield turned around slowly. Before him stood Tom Blake, leaning on somebody else's cane (one that was a bit too tall for him), not quite smiling but not missing one either. He was out of words; the dead boy was alive in front of him again, not as rosy-cheeked as before but not deathly as he had been, and his eyes were blinking and bright and he was moving stiffly but surely. 

He moved a trembling hand forward to touch the sleeve of Blake's jacket, feeling the warmth of the cloth and the body it clung to. It felt surreal and yet he was there before him, breathing in and out. 

"Mighty good to see you again," Tom chimed, almost too cheerfully. "Got worried you were taken, or something of the like."

Schofield blinked.

"No, I—" he began, his heart in the back of his mouth. "I thought you were dead."

Blake's expression darkened slightly, but then he shrugged, wincing a little.

"S'not unexpected of you," he said, and then laughed. "Guess I looked pretty dead."

Schofield cracked a closed-mouth smile with little substance behind its expression. Not long before he had held Blake as he thought he felt him die, even answered him with the assurance that he was dying, cradled him and walked him through it with the softest words he could utter; now, Blake was standing and smiling and breathing and blinking and even laughing at the thought of his own supposed mortality. 

"Headed towards home tomorrow, aren't we?" Tom spoke, trying to fill the silence. 

"Yes," Schofield answered. "I'll take you to the train station and we'll be up to London that night." 

As the sky faded to a pale blue, Blake took one last look at Schofield before turning back.

"I'll see you then, at dawn," he muttered, and though smiling, left with a further burdened conscience.


End file.
